national holiday

A rich program awaits residents and visitors of Veliko Tarnovo on September 6th – Unification Day. The Unification of Bulgaria was the act of the unification of the Bulgarian Kingdom and Eastern Rumelia in the autumn of 1885. It was coordinated by the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee. The unification was carried out after riots in different cities of Eastern Rumelia, followed by a military coup on September 6th in 1885, supported by the Bulgarian Prince Alexander I and led by Major Danail Nikolaev. The day was declared a public holiday for the country by the National Assembly on February 18, 1998.

A free pedestrian tour, traditional exhibition, horo and many more in Veliko Tarnovo for the National Holiday on the 3rd of March. The celebration of the National holiday of Bulgaria in Veliko Tarnovo will begin with a military ritual at 10.30 in front of the building of the municipality. The mayor eng. Daniel Panov will give a festive speech and he will give the Academic Award March 3rd to a cadet from the National Military University.

Yesterday the Bulgarian government approved changes in the Labour Law concerning public and national holidays. Until now if a holiday fell on Tuesday or Thursday the government would usually declare the Monday before or the Friday after an official non-working day (a working Saturday would be then designated to make up for the missed day) meaning we would get 4 workfree days in a row. Or even 6 days in a row! As was the case in May 2014 when 1st May was Thursday and 6st May was Tuesday, both being official holidays in Bulgaria, this meant we got to rest from Thursday till Tuesday! Many people including the business sector disapproved of this practice for various reasons – disruption in the work process, delays in payments, disrupted communication between institutions, less efficient workers, worse labour productivity, stress and so on. This practice of rearranging working days is now a thing of the past. Public and national holidays will no longer be connected with the weekend to form the so called Bridge Holiday – when they fall during working days only the particular day will be non-working. When they happen to be during weekends the following Monday is to compensate and will be a day off work. The changes come in effect from 1st January 2017 meaning 2nd January (Monday) is officially the first non-working day under the new law.